Kaixiang Zhang
Dreams
fallen chalk collected under the cliff and plaster
78
× 48
× 21 cm
In the autumn of 2022, perhaps drawn by an innate bond with the coastal cities of my childhood, an intuitive pull led me to move to Eastbourne, UK. I yearned to stand at the ocean’s edge to chart the next course of my life. To the west of this town lie the rolling white cliffs and the South Downs. I often wandered along the coastline toward Beachy Head. As the altitude rose, the vast horizon of the sea slowly unfolded before me. The world in my ears shifted quietly, withdrawing from the clamor of the city, leaving only the soft hum of the waves, the chirping of birds, the whisper of the wind, and the delicate rustle of leaves.
In 2023, I came across David Bowie’s 1983 performance of Imagine—a tribute to John Lennon that envisioned an ideal world without boundaries, where people live together, setting aside prejudice to dwell in the present. One afternoon, while walking atop the white cliffs of Beachy Head, the setting sun cast a soft, warm glow, silhouetting the hills against the meadows facing the sea. In that moment of profound silence, the sound of waves from below drifted up, as if the wind were quietly bringing echoes of a distant past to my side. I recalled the words of Zhuangzi: "Heaven and Earth coexist with me; all things and I are one." Suddenly, I felt detached from the mortal world, my spirit wandering through an imagined space-time—a vision where one day, people from across the globe set aside conflict and estrangement to sleep upon this boundless earth, sharing a single dream of peace.
I gathered the fallen, fragmented pieces of chalk from the cliffside and reassembled them, sculpting them into the form of that pillow. Afterward, I returned the object to the white cliffs, allowing it to dissolve through wind and rain back into the cycle of time. This work is both a deliberate gathering and a prelude to a long, inevitable dispersal.